The Cliff
by Raum
Summary: COMPLETE - "The most important person of her life is not going to come back. She's going to jump off a cliff. A young woman in her darkest moment." Are you sure you know her? Best Drama winner in the Emerging Swan Awards. "Originality-Creativity" contest winner.


**Contest winner!** "O is for originality, C is for creativity" CONTEST WINNER! (April 2011) –

**Disclaimer: **Twilight and its characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. Absolutely no copyright infringement intended.

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><p><strong>The most important person of her life is not going to come back. <strong>

**She's going to jump off a cliff. **

**A young woman in her darkest moment. **

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><p>The potted plant in the living room seems thirsty. It is a living being, like me, but not like <em>him<em>. Am I more similar to a plant than to him?

I feel potted, too. I feel stuck in a condition that I didn't choose, just as this plant.

I tried to read something last night, to no avail. The words on the page were only black stains on a white sheet, without any meaning, without any music, without any sense. I read and reread the same pages, and I couldn't remember them. They seemed to belong to someone else's memories.

So I avoid reading stories. I try to cook something. I take out my book of recipes. I even manage to read the recipe of a milkshake, maybe or maybe not. Once, on a magazine, I saw the image of a girl drinking a milkshake and I remember that I found it so nice and funny, and it made me desire immediately a milkshake. Was there actually a time when I could find that something was funny?

I close my book of recipes. Everything is now just black and white. There is only salt and pepper left, without any food, meaningless as everything else. Every time I try to concentrate on something or I try to read, there is the same spell.

The colors are gone. The smells are gone. The flavors are gone.

I think about _his_ smell. About his sweet, delicate smell.

_Don't do it. Don't do it! _

If I indulge in this thought, I know that in a matter of moments I'll be kneeling on the floor, shaken by a new wave of sobs.

_Don't even pronounce his name_.

But it's too late. His name, his smell, his face are now back in my mind. My body doesn't respond anymore. My body was so attuned to his once; with him I felt that I was flourishing, I was finally blossoming. And now I'm only a ball of sorrow, a kneeling ball of pain.

His name comes out. His smell is here, is he back? Another wave of anguish is the only answer.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but his name is, at the same time, the sweetest and the most painful thing in my world. It is the only music left in my ears.

I'm so tired. I try to rest, but every night ends with my voice screaming his name.

I do strange things, at night, when I can't sleep. I spend an entire night caressing a picture of my father as a child; it was a watercolor made by my grandmother and he was on a rocking horse; he was so cute. My father was a baby, too. Who would have thought it? My grandmother told me that his rocking horse was his favorite plaything. He felt as he was a young knight, a brave young knight. My grandmother used to say that he'd always been brave, always so proud of his own courage.

I can't recall anything else. I spend an entire night thinking of the child that my father was, trying to recall other family memories and watching them vanish into thin air.

Could a rocking horse have been among _his_ favorite games?

_Again, don't do it_.

I have nightmares. And they are so vivid that their memory doesn't fade away so easily.

I dreamed about my mom. She was wearing a beautiful jade necklace. Jade... I could picture _him_with jade eyes, with piercing, precious jade eyes. In my nightmares nothing goes away. There are colors, smells, flavors, and music. But they were never good.

"_Mom, I'm scared"._

"_I know it. I know it, sweetheart. But you must be brave."_

"_I can't bear it anymore, mom. When is it going to be over? Please, mom, help me! Tell me that it's going to be over!"_

_And then my mom said something that I couldn't understand. It sounded as "It ain't over until the fat lady sings."_

"_Mom? What fat lady? Mom, what are you saying?"_

Next thing, I am awake. And I am screaming. My room has become a black hole. With him, it was a nest, a warm and cozy nest. Now it is a hole, a black hole where I know that a new nightmare is waiting for me.

_I dreamed about the war. There weren't corpses, there weren't bombs. But I could hear the deafening sound of machine guns. And then, there was a man._

_He seemed a very small man, and I was alone with him. But then, when I looked closer at this unknown person, he wasn't even a man anymore. He was an elf, instead, and was trying to talk to me._

"_Are you looking for anyone, milady?"_

"_I am."_

"_I think I know where he is, milady."_

"_Please, help me! Please, I need to find him!"_

"_Did he join the Great War?"_

"_No. No! He didn't join the war!"_

"_Tell me his name, milady. I'll look for him in the soldiers' list."_

"_No! He's not a soldier! Please help me find him!"_

"_Why are you looking for him?"_

"_I love him! I want him back!"_

"_Love? Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig!"_

"_What? What are you saying? Please, listen to me. I beg of you, help me find him"_

_The man started to dance, singing a ridiculous song. "Love suddenly turns on you with a miniature machine gun," he sang. He grew scary teeth that seemed like fangs; he was like a ferocious animal. He didn't help me! I had to find someone who would pity me, who would help me. _

_I run away; the image of the good doctor that had always helped me came to my mind. I had to find him, he could help me. And I run, I run. Now I was knocking at the door, knocking, knocking. But the doctor _was_n't home. He too had gone and wouldn't come back. If he was here I knew he would help, he would not allow for my love to go away, to leave me… _

I'm going to walk to the cliff today.

I need to breathe fresh air. I need to breathe out from this house.

From the cliff, the view seems to stretch on forever.

_Forever_.

With him, for the first time in my life I discovered that there was something that I wanted forever.

I felt that I was capable of loving someone so deeply that the rest of my life was not enough to show him how precious he was to me. I had never felt that way, and it was so fresh and glorious.

I brush my hair in the morning, out of habit.

It is a reassuring gesture; it's something simple and maybe it will help me to keep my own thoughts at bay for a very little while.

I give just a glance to my image in the mirror. My face is beyond pale: it is an ugly shade of white. More grey than white, actually. It is the face of a ghost, of one of the many, evil ghosts that come to visit me every night.

_His face_...the image of his face is the only one I can see now; his skin as white as snow, translucent as the finest alabaster, his features so perfect that I could have never noticed how time went by when I was looking at him.

He never comes in my dreams as a ghost. He could never be a ghost, not even in my worst nightmares.

I recall the first time I touched his body, and I felt my heart thud erratically.

I can't imagine how an angel's beauty could be more pure than his beauty. There was nothing about him that could be improved upon.

The air on the cliff is cold. I welcome this chilly air as a refreshing breeze on my feverish skin.

I walk to the edge of the cliff, and I inhale deeply. I'm not scared, am I?

But, again, memories are too strong.

This air is icy as his skin. The image of the last time I saw him is now vivid, too vivid, in my mind.

The thought of my last caress on his cold skin is the last blow: I'm again in the hole, everything around me is vanishing into thin air, everything is going black.

I shiver, but inside I feel a scorching fire. The burn in my chest is agonizing.

The image of myself falling from the cliff is so clear... the utter freedom of the fall…maybe it will be the only way to calm the fire, the only way to stop my frantic thoughts.

The pain is more and more intolerable.

I can't bear it anymore.

_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, my love._

My angel, you flew away. I'm coming, now. I'm ready to fly to reach you.

I draw in a deep breath. One... the second breath... this is the last.

I smile. For the first time since he's gone, I smile.

_I'm coming, my child. Mommy is coming, my son. _

I lean forward, crouching to get more spring.

_I miss you so much, my beloved. But now we'll be together. Mommy loves you so much, my little treasure._

And I fling myself off the cliff.

"My first and only baby died just a few days after he was born, the poor tiny thing.

It broke my heart - that's why I jumped off the cliff."

(Esme in _Twilight_).

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><p><strong>Author's notes:<strong>

Thanks to Camilla10 for her support and her precious feedback and editing!

Thanks to Duskwatcher and AnthroBug, lovely betas of Project Team Beta!

Feel free to follow me on Twitter (RaumTweet)

On http : / / myreadinglounge. blogspot. com/ you can find twific recs and reviews, author interviews and story extras. There's also a "Writing Lab" with writing tips and experiences!


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